Comparison PlantsDrugs – Psychoactive Plants

 

[Ruth Heather Hull]

Why does the patient require a remedy sourced from the ‘Plant Kingdom’ specifically?

The basic sensations in this patient are those of a plant remedy: sensitivity, reactivity and their opposites, insensitivity and lack of reactivity. He is extremely sensitive to pain, to

touch, to movement, to sounds and to smells yet he has the ability to shut himself off physically and his presenting complaint is that of numbness:

“I have to punch myself really hard in order to feel something. I love fire and can even pick up burning logs with my bare hands”.

Importantly, his history is full of instances of emotional and physical hurt and shock and since his birth he has experienced an extraordinary amount of pain, beginning with colic as a

baby to being bullied and attacked in his teens.

Similar to other plant remedies, his complaints tend to come on rapidly, with great variety, much sensitivity and quick reactions.

For example his “heart rate ranges from 45 per minute when calm to 100 when anxious”.

 

Why does the patient require a remedy sourced from ‘drugs’ specifically?

The patient’s extreme sensitivity and insensitivity is indicative of a remedy sourced from a drug as is the confusion he experiences between his dream world and reality; his mind needing “

people to channel activities”; his distorted perceptions of time in his daydreams;

and his paranoia: “when I have a problem I imagine all the negative outcomes which can

freak me out and bring on panic”.

 

Why does the patient require a ‘psychoactive plant drug remedy’ specifically?

There are many psychoactive plant themes in this patient:

Activity - inactivity:

he experiences many different headaches, some caused by sitting still, others caused by physical exertion; he is restless and clicks his knuckles or drums his fingers or picks and scratches

at things; and he has hyper-flexible joints. In addition, he actively demonstrates this flexibility to the homoeopath during the consultation.

Sensitivity - insensitivity:

“a mere touch can bring on a headache” and he feels the pain of his headache acutely, yet he can make himself insensitive to a physical beating. His sense organs are also remarkably acute:

“my hearing is very acute for voices far off in the distance. My sense of smell is so acute that I can smell the dog in heat in the neighbourhood.”

Heat - cold:

“numbness ... < when cold”, “panic with hot and cold flushes and a racing heart”, “the only thing that helped the pain was to bend over fire and burn myself even more”, and “I love fire and can

even pick up burning logs with my bare hands”.

Heaviness:

“headache ... like a thumb pressing inwards”, he experiences an opposition to his opinion “as a blow” and suffers from depression.

Clarity:

he has an active, acute mind and if “allowed to keep busy while learning I have 100% memory and ability to gather information.”

Instability:

“He gets abrupt and intense mood swings and severe depression, brought on randomly” and he oscillates between being calm and panicking.

Delirium:

“Despite increased energy (a “high”) at night, he is a very good sleeper with such vivid dreams that he sometimes gets confused between his dreamworld and reality.

He dreams of distorted mutilated faces, of people at school, or talking rabbits”. Underlying these dreams is the sensation of horror.

The sensation of horror and trauma is not only evident in his dreams. It pervades everything about him from the physical conditions he has suffered to the emotional and mental torture he has received. His words “I had a very traumatic childhood” are almost an understatement: he has had severe colic; his intestines emerging through his anus; abdominal pain with vomiting of blood on an aeroplane; his baby teeth removed surgically; a jellyfish wrapping its tentacles around his body and stinging him; bullying at school; and has been attacked as a teenager in a most horrifying manner. In addition to all of this, he was raised in a volatile, broken home.

The theme of escape is prominent in drug remedies in general and the patient escapes his pain as a psychoactive plant remedy would: by no longer feeling it, by becoming insensitive and inactive:

“I had so much pain as a child that now I don’t feel anything anymore.

I saw them coming and knew they were going to beat me up so I just resigned myself to that. All the time I felt nothing. I just lay there.

 

 

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